On Apple’s Eve

It’s Monday, September 11th, and while many of us are rightfully taking time today to remember the events of 16 years ago, we will eventually be focusing once again on tomorrow in tech. September the 12th will be dominated by Apple’s reveal of their latest round of tech innovations. The world has a pretty good idea what Apple’s new iPhone 8 is going to look like and do, but there’s still much debate over what it’s going to be called.

9to5 Mac says they got ahold of an accidental pre-release download of iOS 11 and after poking around in the code, they say the new phone is tagged as the iPhone X, or iPhone 10, depending on how you want to decipher that X. “iPhone 10” would seem to make sense since it’s coming on the 10-year anniversary of the original iPhone’s introduction. However, it could also still end up being the iPhone Edition, as several other rumors have strongly suggested over the summer.

Meanwhile, it looks like the iPhones that would typically be the “iPhone 7 and 7 Plus” upgrades will be called the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Perhaps the slight bumps in size, expected wireless charging and other changes were enough for Apple to give them a promotion. And more 11th-hour rumors suggest there will indeed be a stand-alone LTE Apple Watch in the mix as well. We’ve got a preview of everything we expect from tomorrows big Apple show right here.

Less phone, more screen

Meanwhile, Chinese cell phone make Xiaomi is looking to steal at least a little bit of the new iPhone’s minimal bezel thunder with their new Me Mix 2, the follow-up to their popular Me Mix from last year, which was one of the first phones to actually achieve the nearly bezel-less aesthetic everyone seems to be chasing these days. The latest Mix features a 6-inch screen, an aluminum body, and a piezo-electric speaker system that works through the screen. Neat.

Stout internal hardware includes a Snapdragon 835, 6gb of RAM, and up to 256gb of storage, all starting at $500 – if you’re in China. There is also a “special edition” all-ceramic version of the phone with  of RAM and 256gb of storage for $720. It comes in black or a snazzy white. Again, only in China, but our man in the UK, DT’s Andy Boxall, got his mitts on one of the regular flavors of the new phone and has a first look review.

Because we all need to commute at 250mph

Some car news now: China says they’re going to end the production of all gas and diesel-powered vehicles in favor of electric powertrains, but they kind of forgot to say when they’re going to pull the trigger on those plans. OK, they probably didn’t forget, but no firm date was mentioned, so that will give them time to import a few of these things, known as the very much gas-powered and not-electric Bugatti Chiron (shirown), which just had a speed test of sorts.

MotorAuthority says the new hypercar made the vaunted “0-to-248.548 miles an hour-to-0 run” in just a fraction under 42 seconds, which is also known as the 0-to-400  kilometers per hour–to-0 test for those of us that use the metric system. That’s really fast. Like faster than Indy car fast. And it’s a street car. A $3 million street car, but hey, at least you can still get groceries with it.

The Chiron is packing a 16-cyclinder, 1,480-horsepower quad-turbocharged engine which can literally generate 2-G acceleration forces on par with a space shuttle launch. The rear wing acts like an air brake to help slow you down on re-entry. And hey, if you need that kind of thrill in your life, Bugatti still has 200 build slots available for the car, but act fast, they’re only going to make 500 of them. Maybe get two…

We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Close to the Metal (computers and such) on Tuesday, Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans)  on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.